Spent the past hour trawling your friends’ Facebook? How does that make you feel..?

Fundraising Goes Viral

Online charity appeals continue to dominate the news; we’ve tracked down the most successful viral campaigns from the last few weeks.

Humans of New York blog sparks massive indiegogo campaign. Photographer Brandon Stanton’s image of Vidal, a young boy from Brownsville, Brooklyn, who claimed his compassionate head teacher was the greatest influence in his life, has gone viral, accumulating over 1 million likes on Facebook.

The image inspired a campaign to raise $100,000 to send the students of Vidal’s school, Mott Hall Bridges Academy, to the Harvard campus.

To date the campaign has achieved over $1 million, with excess funds being put into the ‘Vidal Scholarship Programme’, which will be used to support students’ on the path to Harvard. The first recipient of this Scholarship will be Vidal who inspired it all.

Neighbourhood support finds international audience: Horrified by the brutal attack on pensioner Alan Barnes that last week left him in hospital with a broken collarbone, neighbour Katie Cutler set up a fund to help Alan purchase a home away from the area of the incident.

Katie aimed to raise £500, but the appeal soon gained widespread coverage on social media, with donations now totalling £330,145 from 24,748 well-wishers across the globe.

Social media helps in fundraising drive: 56-year-old James Robertson hit headlines last week as it was revealed that he has spent 8 hours a day commuting 21 miles to work, mostly on foot, for the last 10 years.

Impressed by his determination, Evan Leedy set up a JustGiving page to help raise money towards a car for James who cannot afford one on his $10.55 hourly wage.

With an initial goal of $25,000, the fund has already raised $299,665, along with the offer of a free car from a local dealership.

Spent the past hour trawling your friends’ Facebook? How does that make you feel..?

New research from the university of Missouri-Columbia suggests that engaging in “surveillance use” of Facebook — looking through the site to compare achievements with those of friends — can have a detrimental effect on mental health.

The study involved a survey of 700 students. Those who used Facebook purely to keep in touch with friends reported no adverse emotional effects. Those who actively spied on friends and felt envious of the activities of others reported higher levels of depression.

The research is published in the same week that a study from Chapman University, California found that users are more likely to use Facebook to share positive news, although it is more likely to be concealed than negative posts.

The Chapman University study of 599 Facebook users showed that, whereas positive posts were more frequent, they were more likely to be in the form of subtle and indirect updates. Bad news, on the other hand, was commonly shared directly.